India, Pak delegates spar over Kashmir at UN

Pakistani and Indian delegates engaged in a fresh verbal duel on the right to self-determination of the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine during a debate at the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee meeting, which deals with special political and decolonisation issues. Last week, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram had said in his speech that the Kashmiris and Palestinians were among those peoples who were still denied of their right to self-determination. He called Indian occupation of Kashmir the “worst manifestation of modern-day colonialism”. Reacting to the speech on Monday, Indian delegate Nitish Birdi said that the right to self-determination principle was not a justification for undermining the territorial integrity of any member state. He added that Kashmir and Ladakh would remain an integral part of India. Pakistani delegate Naeem Sabir Khan hit back immediately. He said that the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples reaffirmed the right to self-determination of all the peoples, and not just some people. Read also: India, Pak delegates spar over Kashmir at UN “The right is also enshrined in the first article of the United Nations Charter, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” the Pakistani delegate told the Fourth Committee. He also said that Jammu and Kashmir was defined as a disputed territory on the United Nations maps and it was not an integral part of India. “Multiple resolutions of the United Nations Security Council define it as a ‘disputed territory’,” Naeem, a counsellor in the Pakistan Mission to the UN, added. Highlighting India’s state-sponsored terrorism, he said it was a franchise that had gone from regional to global level, with Pakistan, along with other countries, facing this menace. Citing an Amnesty International report, he said that India was targeting human rights defenders and the civil society. “The terrifying rise in Islamophobia in India is a distressing consequence of the blind pursuit by the BJP-RSS government of the majoritarian ‘Hindutva’ agenda and its explicit support for anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Today, no minority is safe in India,” Naeem added.

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